Sunday, November 13

Fragment 13

I didn't see my grandmother die. I didn't even see her body. It was already cremated by the time I found out. What if she's still alive? Can she tell me what's going on?

Am I going crazy?

The cloudsite had our names and faces. Our list of crimes included theft, grand larceny, treason, and identity theft.

Canto stared at the screen with obvious worry. He couldn't go back to his place now – too many people knew where he lived. He had to stay at my safe house. He closed his eyes and sat down. "So what's next?" he asked.

"Next," I said. "I have no idea what's next. What's next depended on having the Archive. We don't."

"But," he said. "But there has to be something we can do."

"There's lots of things we can do," I said. "None of them helpful." I sat next to Canto. "Do you know why your father would want the Archive?"

"He sent me to the pharm to learn about it," Canto said slowly. "To learn about the memetic monster, the Slender Man. With those stories, he could try making another one. Another weaponized idea."

"Could he?" I asked.

"I don't know," he said. "The Slender Man wasn't made by any of us. We don't know how it was made. All study of it was fruitless. But he could have had a breakthrough."

"He was the one who hired me," I suddenly realized. "He was the big boy. The information was for him. That's why he hired me."

"What?" Canto said. "And you just happened to work with his son? That doesn't make any-"

"He hired me because of you," I said. "Probably knew you worked with me. He was waiting for us, remember. He knew where the data was kept. He knew you would keep it there."

Canto lowered his head again. "Bastard," he whispered.

"If he hired me, though," I said, "who hired the Golconda? They weren't after the Archive – they were there to destroy it."

I looked at the cloudsite feed, the streaming information listing all the facts about my life. I looked at my face on the site and said, "How many people are playing us?"